Davesbs Blog

Hi again,

The Cloud!
It seems everyone is talking about it. Some say ignore it, some love it. But what is it really and how does it effect us SMB IT Consultants.

First thing is, we have all been using cloud computing for a decade. No we haven’t some say…Well their wrong. Where is their website based? I bet it’s not on a server in their ‘Server Room’ (broom cupboard!).
That’s right, it’s outsourced and hosted from the web to other web users. They use the admin control panel to upload etc just like we would with a hosted Exchange Server.

Right, that’s out the way. Now, what is the Cloud. I can’t be bothered going over old ground and political arguments about it. For real life views, and notice I didn’t say definitions, have a look at IT Weekly and other trade press or have a gander at Karl Palachuk’s excellent blog and punch in cloud. Remember to read and re-read all of the articles from this year!

There is no real definition as different people say it means different things. To me it means as Karl says ‘we don’t care where the server is’. It then becomes a true server, somewhere out there which servers a purpose, not a time and money draining expense for the client. I personally see it is a way of less stress for us. We don’t have to take care of the physical box unless we want to. Being a non-geek business technology consultant, I want to consult on ways to help business use their technology to make them more efficient, save them money and give me money for that service. I don’t want to be bogged down with remoting in to a server cause Microsofts latest patch has failed etc etc. I want to be thinking about real life technology and how small businesses can leverage corporate level stuff at an affordable cost in order to better their rivals. I am I suppose, an SMB technology evangelist.

Now sometimes, an inhouse private cloud or even an old fashioned SBS server in the corner is the best way to go. It’s horses for courses and our job is also to deflect the client from buzzword technolgy that they don’t need and that their grandson uses or saw at the end of a BBC news section. If they don’t need a technology or it won’t help them, I tell them so and am not interested if they ignore my advice.
I will still be doing old fashioned server installs and maintenance for the next couple of years but am gearing up for the cloud NOW!

As Karl P mentions, if you don’t have a plan now and think it won’t happen, you will follow the very crowded market and struggle. The same happened with ‘Managed Services’. That is so 2005. There are still people now talking about starting a managed service consultancy. Good luck to them and I really do mean that, but they should be looking more at the cloud than the old model.
Think about it, there are young companies out there who have grown up with nothing but web this and web that, it’s normal to them. They don’t have 10+ experience in the IT world so have no baggage concerning the old model of sell a server every three years, maintain it and repeat and repeat. They don’t even know what that model is. They go ahead, get services out there that people want and grow quickly whilst some of us dinosaurs say ‘it won’t happen because most of my clients want their data in their own server that they own’. Come on, I’ve used that line in the past, but how secure is that data when the office is in the high street, a mere break in away! Yeah it’s backed up offsite but really, if someone owns the computer hard disk, they own your data.

One thing to look at is the amount of clients who ask you about internet backup. I have been having more of mine do that. All the ‘it will take ages to restore or we will have to send them a seeded hard drive crap’ doesn’t wash. They use it at home, their grandson uses it and Google Docs etc. When things like that become the norm even if it is only in their heads, no amount of advice will stop that. People are looking for solutions that take away the human factor. Technology consulting till now has been based around some human looking after the clients technology. I don’t want to do that anymore, I’m bored of it and want a more lucrative and enjoyable way of working.

Remember: ‘It doesn’t matter where the ‘Server’ is. If it works, is said to be secure and doesn’t cause me or my client grief, then great. I love that idea and can’t wait to get going. I can then get on with what excites me and pass that excitement to my clients. People at the moment mostly hate technology cause they are too close to it and see the failures. I want them to LOVE it and see how it can help their bottom line.

Bring on the Cloud, get the engines going and leave the old guard behind!

Well, first day in and the Microsoft Licensing Sales Specialist course is excellent!

Holy crap, did I just say that! I didn’t fall asleep once and even listened to the Enterprise stuff. Now feel ready for the exam though not in a ’salesy’ way. This was pure scenario based learning with real world insights and NOT death by powerpoint!

By far the best Microsoft training event I have been to! (and Angus from Amber Computing agreed!)

Actually really looking forward to tomorrow where we can drill down more into SBS cals etc.

Today I signed up for the 44IN006 – Intensive – Microsoft Licensing Sales Specialist Training event, held in the new Microsoft Headquarters in Edinburgh.

It didn’t seem to be on any of the normal Partner Training sites. However, it was announced on the Tartan Tech Blog which many Scottish partners may have missed or don’t subscribe to!

Check here for great news/updates on Microsoft Scottish Region stuff: http://blogs.technet.com/tartantech/default.aspx

Also, it was pointed out on the new Microsoft Partner Network by Alan Hamilton: http://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com/members/Alan-Hamilton/default.aspx

I am sure other similar courses are being held around the country. Check with local offices or ask on the Partner Network to keep up with training.

Anyway, this is a two day 9-5 course….all about licensing!!!! help!

I did a one day course about a year or so ago and found it sometimes hard going. Much of the stuff was about enterprise agreements etc but this course looks much more SMB-ish and splits the days into Licensing Programs and Product Licensing.

Last course I did gave the MLSS accreditation at the end but again this new course seems more thought out and less salesy. I hope! Also the exam will need to be taken afterwards to gain the MLSS so it’s not so much of a turn up and get another title.

I don’t know about you but I think that Microsoft licensing is like being able to read music. Some people get it straight away but can’t really explain it to lesser mortals and us lesser mortals will never get it and give up

I will be asking for specific solutions to SBS/SMB licensing scenarios so if anyone wants me to raise anything at the training, just ping me.

Cheers

Hi all,

Many apologies to all who have read and will read this blog. (I hope)

I have committed a cardinal sin. One I promised I wouldn’t, namely stopping blogging for a while.

This of course turned into months!

Some good reasons for this though:

1) Re-branding: change of company name and focus. Working on new website as we speak (well, write)!

2) Being diagnosed as having epilepsy at the age of 38 after an out of the blue seizure in October hasn’t helped things. Three more in one day two weeks ago completely knackered me and I am now on life-long medication! I have to thank my clients and friends in the Edinburgh SBS User Group and wider UKSBS community for understanding and support.

3) Some IT issues have so thoroughly pissed me off that I couldn’t bring myself to vent about them until now. One being Windows 7: UAC being diluted, all the different versions and not having Bit-Locker in the ‘Business’ version!

What the F**K is that all about!

Microsoft knew what people thought about the different versions of Vista causing confusion. They knew that Bit-Locker was wanted (and needed) in the business/Pro version of Vista and therefore Windows 7.

Fair enough (maybe), Bit-locker was new in Vista so they wanted to recoup development costs but now it has been out for ages so why not add it to the ‘Business’ version of Windows 7?

Check this out:

http://hiltont.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-microsoft-seems-not-to-understand.html

They have to stave off the attitude of dumb terminals and in the Cloud servers that we are all told are coming in order to sell fully featured desktop operating systems. What do they do, they leave out one of the most important features and then ask businesses to pay even more to add it in.

Johnny business owners says: ‘Na, I don’t think I’ll bother buying SA to get this Bit-Locker, after all I don’t need a new version of Windows cause all my stuff is stored on the internet or my office server. If I do, I will get a new OS with each new PC I fork out for so why pay again. I don’t think so Microsoft!’

I never, I repeat, never, thought that I would think about thin client desktops so soon.

I knew that I would have to consider Cloud computing but I honestly thought that Windows fully featured OS’s would still be around and ‘wanted’ by the buying punters for years to come, mostly because of the features they added that dumb terminals didn’t have.

Way to go Microsoft!

As some may know, I do work with Apple Mac stuff. Some may call it the Dark Side of the force, especially as some of their clients will be asking about the shiny new iPhone and linking it to Exchange!

I am not going to get into a Mac vs Windows discussion, each have their place and I try to specialise in having both work nicely together in a network situation. They are just tools really after all.

BUT…when setting up my girlfriends new 24″ iMac the other day, I just had to be reminded of how simple and dare I say it, enjoyable it was. Now this is not integrated into any Active Directory structure yet, it is hanging off a Netgear ADSL Firewall device for Internet access.

30 minutes was really all it took including taking out the Apple installed 2 x 1GB memory sticks and replacing with 2 x 2GB’s. The iMac has two slots and it is cheaper to buy memory yourself, keep the factory installed parts as spares and upgrade to the maximum 4GB, than to get apple to supply the machine with it!

The fun will be connecting it to my SBS 2008 Beta network, though I think I will have to bite the bullet and get a Mac Mini for testing. The new iMac is for her indoors work so I better not tinker too much

On that note, if anyone wants to get down and dirty with the Dark Side and who has never touched a Mac ever or not for many years, the Mac Mini is the ideal companion. I reckon there is a model refresh/update about to hit as all the other Mac computers have been done. Newer Intel chips and better graphics (Intel GMA X3100) are the order of the day even in the laptop range, so a new Mini must be coming soon. Watch this space as I think days or weeks rather than months and the tight lipped Cupertino will announce a new Mini. Rumours are abound about it being very small at half the size of the existing model as they will do away with any optical drive.

I have been accused of now liking the Mac by the missus as oppossed to seeing it as a necessary but attractive tool. Time will tell….I have spent most of the last few days in front of the iMac instead of any PC. Haven’t done that since I worked in the printing trade

Robbie Upcroft’s SBS Down Under blog announced that Suzanne Dansey has become Australia’s newest SBS MVP! Another SBS MVP joins the list in Australia

Well done Susanne. Keep up the good work

Congratulations to Nick Lloyd and Sirona Solutions, who recently became the latest member of the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community.

If you know me or read this blog you will know that I am great supporter of SBSC and although there are many things which could be done differently or improved upon, I think it is invaluable to the partners who stand behind it.

Nick has even said that this blog contributed to his decision to start blogging about the community http://nickssmbblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/smb-and-sbs-blogs.html

Good on ya Nick!

The server (souped up desktop PC) I have been using for three years is frankly f***ed.

I bought myself an HP ML110G5 with dual core Xeon, four 250gb non-hot swap Sata drives of the new HP Midline range and bumped the ram up to 6GB. Also comes with a next business day 3 year on-site support contract.

This will be my new ‘production’ server once I also get an ML310 or 350 for testing with Virtual machines etc. At the moment it has SBS 2008RC0 on it running just fine, well apart from the DNS issues I blogged about!

The cost of this small but perfectly formed beast? All in just over £700! I might even get another with less drives and memory as the base machine with 1GB ram and a 160GB Sata HD comes in at about £180.

For those of you who do Dell (you know who you are   and not HP, take another look. Excellent build quality and for me, the killer is onboard Sata raid 1. Yes….I can hear the screams already But compared to the dell small servers which don’t have any onboard raid controller, this is a significant advantage. It is a proper and tested Adaptec controller chip. I do not need anything more. If I did, I could get the HP Smart Array E200/128 for £200 or any of the HP range of controllers. Remember this server only has 4 drive bays.

The debate about Sata vs SAS and onboard vs Raid controller card with memory and possibly battery backup will rage for a while if I have anything to do with it

Just a heads up regards SBS 2008 RC0.

I and a few others are having issues with DNS (have a look on Microsoft Connect at your dashboard if you have the public preview and check the bug reports).

Every couple of days internet access flakes out. Testing from the router is fine, Ping and DNS diagnostics run fine. In my case the router is a Netgear Prosafe DGFV338.

Restarting the DNS services on the Server or re-running the Connect to the Internet Wizard (CTIW another new anacronym!) fixes the issue for a few days.

I was about to put in a bug report but searched first and found it was already reported on 30th June. Please always search the bug reports first, it will help streamline the bug hunt! The issue is being looked at and MSFT have not found it to be in their code. We look forward to a fix.

Call me strange but this gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling, being able to download previews and betas, see updates and bug reports and join relevant newsgroups all from a central MSFT Connect site!

It also feels good to be able finally to help shape the upcoming and great looking SBS 2008 product. So far it feels like light years ahead of SBS 2003. Various little things… you get the picture, sign-up for the preview and test if you haven’t already.

Also keep up with David Overton’s blog as he frequently posts about SBS 2008 and has screenshots of installs etc.

Cheers and happy bug reporting! 

Watched a Scottish BBC news item on t’telly tonight about broadband speed.

It seems that the average speeds across the country are about 2Mbps download with some place like Northern Ireland being less that that or indeed, crap!

Some bloke who works in a little village up northern Scotland has to take his boat out to cross a loch just to receive email.

Now don’t get me wrong. I know there are the infrastructure arguments about the UK roll-out of BT’s 21CN network etc etc yawn yawn and how much it will cost. That’s for another blog post.

The real point is that to me, this guy in his boat and many many others like him are the ideal candidate for the hosted/cloud Exchange or Sharepoint. He and his fellow company people may turn over a healthy amount by designing the next big engineering marvel. Just so happens they are geographically spread. They like to live in peaceful remote places. Just one scenario, as is the traditional ten people in a city office sharing info.

How the hell will the cloud work when the usual even business class broadband in this country is so crap. Yes you can buy reliability nowadays, but we need more bandwidth and speed. Try cloud Sharepoint over an ADSL connection whilst looking at your cloud Exchange mailbox and surfing the web. Oh dear….why is this so slow. The data center may have loads of bandwidth to t’internet but that matters not once it’s out there and needs downloading.

And before anyone suggests that the client should just go and get a T1 or leased line or whatever bandwidth rich connection…well I don’t know of many clients who would swallow that cost just to move to the cloud!